This invention relates to a portable welding device, and more particularly but not exclusively, to such a welding device for welding guide tapes used in conveying large items of laundry, such as bedsheets, to be ironed on the roll of a flat work ironer in a laundry. It could, however, be used to weld other objects together.
Guide tapes used as described above wear out and eventually break. These have to be replaced. To do this, the guide tape is sent along the length of the laundry and then both ends are manually knotted or welded together.
It is known to use an ultrasonic welding tool for this purpose. However, conventional welding tools require the use of mains electricity. This can prove extremely inconvenient in a laundry factory where a flat work ironer is a fairly large piece of equipment.
Also, conventional welding tools suffer from damage caused by the oscillating power of the welding transducer (typically at about 60,000 cycles per second), particularly when no object to be welded is present in the work station of the welding device. Also, they are not versatile and are not designed for use by both right handed and left handed persons.